Fewer than 18 percent of workers 25 and older in Jackson County have at least a bachelor’s degree, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, compared to 50 percent in neighboring Washtenaw County.

Not surprisingly, the median household income of $58,234 in Washtenaw is considerably higher than the $46,278 median income in Jackson County.

“There’s a huge gap,” said Monica Moser, president and CEO of the Jackson Community Foundation, which is trying to get more Jackson County residents to go to college with approaches that include the Jackson Legacy Program scholarship.

“There is a direct correlation between the level of higher education in a community and the strength of the community,” Moser said. “That’s exactly why the Jackson Community Foundation took on the Legacy scholarship.”

Census figures show that a college degree can add a million dollars to the lifetime earnings of a typical American worker.

Unfortunately, the census figures contain a few challenging details for Michigan. The state lags behind the rest of the nation in both income and the percentage of people with college degrees. Jackson County is even further behind.

“You can’t really say that the low education has caused the low income,” said Kenneth Darga, Michigan’s state demographer. “A couple decades ago Michigan had above-average income even with low education levels. It’s what happened with the economy that decreased the income.”

But, he added: “Better education will allow Michigan to take advantage of the new economy.”

As recently as 1999, median household income in Michigan was $3,400 above the national average. By 2009, the state’s median had fallen $3,900 below the national figure, to $47,461, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The past decade’s economic upheaval in Michigan resulted largely from a loss of high-paying manufacturing jobs. Those jobs in such industries as transportation and office furniture often required specialized skills, but not college degrees.

Now, with fewer manufacturing jobs, the skills of Michigan’s work force do not always match the demands of employment in new fields.

“In many ways, we are victims of our successes in the 1950s and 1960s,” said Michigan State University economist Charles Ballard.

“Michigan was as successful as any place in the world at providing a middle-class and even upper-middle-class standard of living for folks with only a high school education, or even less. … But the world changed in ways that have rewarded those with more skill, and punished those with less skill, and we did not change with it.”

He cited a “sobering statistic” showing the average man who works full time year-round now makes less than he did in 1978, when wages are adjusted for inflation.

“Since only about a quarter of the adult population have a college degree, we know who the average man is — he has only a high school diploma,” Ballard said.

About 1.6 million Michigan adults had bachelor’s degrees or higher in 2009, according to census figures. That represents just less than 25 percent of the population age 25 and older.

The state and nation are seeing a “large and growing gap” between the incomes of high school graduates and people with college degrees, said Mike Boulus, executive director of the President’s Council, State Universities of Michigan.

In 1980, a college graduate typically made 40 percent more than a person with only a high school diploma, Boulus said. That gap is now 75 percent, and by some estimates it will reach 100 percent by 2025.

The disparity among Michigan counties provides many examples.

Oakland and Washtenaw counties ranked near the top in median household income in 2009, at $65,557 and $58,234, respectively.

They also were tops in percent of working-age adults who had at least a bachelor’s degree: 42 percent for Oakland, 50 percent for Wash-tenaw.

Rural and northern counties were on the lower spectrum. Fewer than 15 percent of working-age adults had degrees in many areas, some with median incomes more than $10,000 lower than the state median.

“Higher levels of education allow people access to more specialized jobs that are often associated with high pay. Degrees in many occupations are treated as job training that may be required for a position,” wrote Census Bureau analysts Tiffany Julian and Robert Kominski, authors of a new study on earnings.

The report, “Education and Synthetic Work-Life Earnings Estimates,” concluded educational attainment has a strong correlation with lifetime earnings, though age, geographic location, gender, race and ethnicity all play a part.

Analyzing 2008 figures, Julian and Kominski estimated median annual earnings for a person with a high school education at $21,569 nationally. The report estimated median annual earnings at $47,283 for persons with a bachelor’s degree and $53,716 for those with master’s degrees.

The researchers compiled statistics from a large national sample of people ages 25 to 64 who were interviewed in 2006-08 as part of the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. The information was used to estimate income for a 40-year “work-life” for people of various education levels and demographic groups.

For example, median lifetime earnings for black males who work full-time, year-round jobs were estimated at $1.3 million for high school graduates; $2.1 million for bachelor’s degree holders; and $2.5 million for those with master’s degrees.

While higher education leads to higher income, many graduates are having difficulty earning that income in Michigan.

About 55,000 bachelor’s degrees are issued in the state each year, but recent estimates show only half

that many job openings for that education level, Boulus said.

Addressing the problem of low income and low educational attainment in Michigan will require state policy changes and a new culture of lifelong learning, according to Ballard.

“If we were serious,” he said, “we would: (a) have a lot more for early childhood, (b) have full-day kindergarten statewide, (c) have a K-12 school year of 200 days,

and (d) reverse the enormous cuts to higher-education funding.

“We don’t do those things, primarily because we are obsessed with keeping taxes low,” he said. “But if we were serious about our economic future, we would do all of those things, even though they cost money.”

In a country that prides itself on providing greater opportunities for each generation, Spring Arbor University President Charles Webb worries that today’s young people won’t be as well-educated as their parents.

“We need to be educating people that can step into the workforce to help us be able to create those new jobs and to expand current corporations that are there. Our hope is the next generation, and that’s what we’re committed to (at SAU),” Webb said.

“The trajectory right now is not the most encouraging to think that the next generation would be more educated than their parents.”

— Edward Hoogterp of the Citizen Patriot News Service and staff writer Bob Wheaton contributed to this report.